Norman Briski (born January 2, 1938) is a well-known Argentine theatre actor, director and playwright, as well as a noted cinema and television actor.
Naum Normando Briski was born in Santa Fe, Argentina, in 1938. His Jewish Argentine family relocated to Córdoba, where Briski developed an interest in acting and where, in 1955, he was given his first stage role in La Farsa del señor Corregidor. He continued his work in the theatre and in time earned leading parts in plays such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and The Mother. He was given his first cinema role, a part in Ricardo Alventosa's comedy, Cómo seducir a una mujer (How to Seduce a Woman), in 1967.
Remaining active in the local theatre, Briski established an independent theatre company, "Octubre," in the early 1970s, and devoted its repertoire to the production of classics banned in Argentina at the time (such as Oedipus Rex). A left-wing Peronist, he received death threats from the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, a paramilitary group active in the mid-1970s, and left for Spain in 1975. There, he was cast by director Carlos Saura for a leading role in his acclaimed 1976 drama, Elisa, vida mía (Elisa, My Life), and in his work of magic realism, Mamá cumple cien años (Mom Turns 100), in 1979. He contributed to a number of other Spanish films and to Swedish director Stig Björkman's Walk on Water If You Can (1979).